


Filename: the Reichenbach Fall v.2

by noirhound



Series: Folder name: Drafts (unpublished) [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: John Watson's Blog, John Watson's Reichenbach Feels, M/M, POV John Watson, Post-Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 20:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18395957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noirhound/pseuds/noirhound
Summary: On John Watson's laptop is a folder full of bits and pieces of blog entries that he's cut from the final post; they ruin the flow of the story (he isn't brave enough to post them) but he won't scrap them completely because they might be useful later (he can't even bear to look at them anymore).~~~Sort of fitting, isn’t it, that our story began and ended at St. Barts’?Seeing him on the roof of the building was an experience in and of itself. One I should hope I’ll never have to repeat, and one that I would never wish on anyone, even on my worst enemy. Even Moriarty.His voice over the phone was shaking, and that’s how I knew he wasn’t joking. He’s known for donning disguises now and again, and he’s a brilliant actor, but I knew deep down that he wasn’t dicking around this time. He really was saying goodbye.





	Filename: the Reichenbach Fall v.2

**Author's Note:**

> this is a part two of the previous fic in this series, because the last bit got pretty big and so I made the executive decision of cutting it in half, but you don't have to read that to be able to understand this.

Sort of fitting, isn’t it, that our story began and ended at St. Barts’?

Seeing him on the roof of the building was an experience in and of itself. One I should hope I’ll never have to repeat, and one that I would never wish on anyone, even on my worst enemy. Even Moriarty.

His voice over the phone was shaking, and that’s how I knew he wasn’t joking. He’s known for donning disguises now and again, and he’s a brilliant actor, but I knew deep down that he wasn’t dicking around this time. He really was saying goodbye.

That tremor to his voice is something that will haunt me for the rest of my days. Why? Because he sounded afraid. And in my mind, he wasn’t allowed to be afraid, because he was untouchable, indestructible. He was above us all, and he knew it, and I knew it, and him being afraid was the crack in the lens; the fly in the ointment, as he was fond of saying.

It reminded me of Baskerville, when we sat opposite each other by an unfamiliar hearth and he was manic with fright. It was a different time then. Baskerville seemed so long ago, when in actuality it had only been a few months. Pre-Reichenbach, let us say, before the whole world hailed his praise. Back then it was just the two of us, and the papers had only very recently begun to take notice of him, and the idea of fame was so new and so novel that we scarcely gave it much thought. Before, when we were able to go out for dinner and not be constantly interrupted by reporters or fans. Before, when we were able to leave the flat without being accosted by gossip columnists. Before the deerstalker became a Sherlock Hat. _Before_.

I’m glad of his success. Certainly not jealous, far from it. If anyone’s talents deserve to be recognized, it’s his. He seems indifferent to it all, as is his way. He still does as he pleases, talks without filters, behaves as if he has not a care in the world. I’ve chided him about it many times, but you can imagine how much good that does.

It must be nice, not giving a damn about what other people think of you. Personally I’ve always been worried about what people say about me. It’s just the way I am. And it’s another way in which he and I are complete and total opposites, but in some baffling way, we fit together.

Someone once told me that Sherlock was the unstoppable force, and I was the immovable object, and that's why he and I made sense together.

I never told Sherlock about it, of course (he’d have scoffed and dismissed it immediately), but I quite liked how it sounded.

I suppose that that is what I will miss most about him. Even as I write this in what is likely the last week I’ll ever spend in Baker Street (almost finished closing on another flat), I still can’t completely believe that he’s really gone. It feels like he’s simply dropped down to NSY to give a statement again, and he’ll soon come trouncing back into the flat, stomping on all the stairs and slamming the doors to announce his arrival, and we’ll order in some Chinese (my favorite; he tolerates it) and watch some crap telly. He’ll probably play the violin after, if he isn’t in one of his moods -- but if he is, I usually make us each a cuppa and ask him to tell me how he deduced so-and-so on a particular case, and he’ll launch into a long elaborate explanation (he really loved his methods), and --

Well.

I can’t, though, can I?

That’s what it feels like. An abrupt full stop at the end of a sentence. Like if I wait long enough, he’ll come back. But he won’t, and I have to keep reminding myself of the fact.

That might sound like a cliché, but keep in mind that our flat is -- _was_ \-- always full of loud noises and horrible smells, usually from his experiments. You’d wake up to the sound of his intentionally screeching violin at half past one because he couldn’t sleep and decided that, by extension, nobody else should be allowed to. The far wall was hidden under newspaper clippings and post-it notes and maps and photographs when there was a case, and the _fleur de lis_ wallpaper had bullet holes peppered across it more often than not. I’d be editing the Blog and he'd be thundering through the flat, upending things and spoiling for an argument or a case or a cigarette -- as if I could do anything about it. We never ate at the table because it was covered in petri dishes with bacterial cultures and all manner of lab equipment. It still is, although that’s only because I can’t bear to put it any of it away.

It’s lonely. He filled the silences. Even when neither of us were talking. Just looking up from my book or my paper or my notes and seeing him in his chair, tapping away on his phone, or staring off into space, was reassurance for me. He'd catch me looking (because nothing really escapes him unless he chooses to ignore it.) “What?” he'd ask, without glancing up from whatever he was doing.

“Nothing. You were brilliant today,” I’d reply, and he would smile with the corner of his mouth, and I would return to my book or my notes, and he to his.

I used to think that he kept me around because I showered him with praise when everyone else called him a “freak” and a “weirdo”. I asked him about it, once. He said that while that may have been the initial ulterior motive, he grew not to mind having someone to talk to. So much so that he would talk to me when I wasn’t around. He asked me then why I still put up with him. “I don't _put up with you,_ " I'd said. "You’re my friend, and I care about you, and I like spending time with you,” I’d added, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world (it was) and, I kid you not, he had been speechless for about a day or two afterwards.

But enough rambling. I find that I don’t quite know what to do with myself anymore.

It’s far too quiet here. Without him.

I can hear Mrs. Hudson crying downstairs. I was just with her, and she was telling me stories of him, from before I took up residence here, then it all became too much too fast. Sort of spun out of control -- the room, I mean. I got horribly dizzy and nauseated, so I excused myself and came back upstairs. I locked the door, stumbled into the bathroom, dropped to my knees in front of the toilet. I closed my eyes and I saw him: blood, dark and sinister, unfurling across the wet pavement, his temple stained red from where his head hit the ground, his eyes blown wide open, his limbs contorted. I closed my eyes, I saw him, I threw up, in an awful, seemingly unending cycle. When my stomach had emptied of all contents, I pressed down on the flush, sank to the floor, and I cried and cried and cried. I cried for hours. I passed out with my cheek against cold tile and the taste of bile in the back of my throat.

He was gone, you see, but I was not, and he was all I had left in the world, so how should I carry on without him? I’m still half-expecting to walk into the flat and see him sprawled out in his chair wearing one of his stupid silk dressing gowns and grumbling about the incompetence of the London police force. But of course, the flat is dark and lonely and devoid of him, and there are no new knives in the mantle or new body parts in the freezer, and there never will be, and his chair is opposite mine, but it’s empty. It will always be empty. I can’t even look at it anymore. I can’t look at anything in here anymore.

I’m sorry again, to all of you who have waded through this mess and managed to get to the end. You came here for a case, or an explanation, or both, and instead you got… whatever the hell this is.

I’m sorry. I don’t know if I can update this blog anymore. My heart goes out to everyone grieving for him.

I will say this before I have to go finish packing (movers'll be here tomorrow morning): even though Sherlock is... is dead, his memory lives on with us -- those who believed in him. So don’t stop believing in him, I beg of you. For his sake, and for the sake of those who loved him when he was with us, and for the sake of us who still do.

Don’t stop.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, all kudoses, comments, and concrits are appreciated beyond words. If you just want to yell at me about Sherlock, though, I'm on tumblr @renskylos and twitter @thebodegaman.


End file.
